Into the Great Wide Open

Holy Cow has this been a weird football season, for both the NFL and college ranks.

I can’t remember when I’ve ever been this far into a season and still had no real certifiable gauge on who the best teams really are. Yeah sure, we’ve got our list of usual suspects (Steelers, Patriots in the NFL, and a few others – more on the Pros in the next entry), but even the best of the best are nowhere near as invincible as they seem in other years.

This is no more apparent anywhere than in Division I college football (I refuse to start calling it ‘FBS’ – that stupid acronym that took the place of ‘Division I-A’ a few years ago even though nobody officially seemed to tell anyone else. I don’t even know what FBS stands for. I would have to google it to find out. And that, my friends, is a problem).

Back on track – the top two teams in the country, as of the latest BCS standings, are Oregon and Auburn. Who’s holding tight at Nos. 3 and 4? TCU and Boise State. What the Word-that-rhymes-with-truck is that all about? Even the one SEC team that’s in the top two right now isn’t a name that’s usually in the “national title contender” conversation. It’s truly a wide open year, and the craziest thing is that Boise State might still go undefeated, having won each game handily, and still get left out in the cold in a season when all of the ‘big-name’ programs (i.e. Florida, Texas, Alabama, USC, Ohio State, etc.) may very well not make the championship game. Don’t you love it? Either that, or it makes you want to hurl something through a plate-glass window.

And the most recent brouhaha that has the college football world abuzz centers on Auburn quarterback Cam Newton, who apparently may have accepted a few hundred thousand dollars worth of ‘pot-sweetener’ to name the university of his choice. No allegations have been proven yet, but it certainly wouldn’t be unthinkable for some schools out there to shelve a player simply for the black cloud that such rumblings bring along. I doubt we’ll see that happen with the Tigers, who haven’t been this close to a national championship game in decades. Newton would have to be exposed beyond a shadow of a doubt before we see him get benched, considering the Heisman-like performance he’s had this year.

Oregon has the best shot of making the title game. They’re at the top of the pile and they control their own destiny. They’ve got the most favorable schedule and an absolutely insanely prolific offense, which means their defense doesn’t even need to be fantastic – merely serviceable – in order for them to keep winning games. TCU and Boise State are lurking at 3 and 4 – boy, wouldn’t it be mind-boggling to see a school from a non-automatic BCS qualifying conference make it into the championship game.

But don’t be at all surprised if any one of a handful of one-loss major-conference schools hovering right behind TCU and Boise – such as LSU, Stanford, Wisconsin, Nebraska or Ohio State – leapfrog the Horned Frogs and Broncos into the title game to face either Auburn or Oregon.

Then we’d have the same old up-in-arms story. The same old arguments. The same controversy. Some would say that’s a big element of what makes this sport so much fun and so enthralling. Others would say it’s a huge part of what makes it maddeningly frustrating and impossible for less-than-major schools to fairly win a championship.

Good or bad, I say it’s a little bit of both.